Cuts debt and confirms 3-year guidance
Net debt was reduced by EUR 457 million to EUR 25.1 billion at the end of March and the company said it was aiming for “after-lease” debt of around EUR 20.5 billion in 2021, before non-organic operations, compared to EUR 22 billion under previous rules. It also confirmed its guidance for the next 3 years of a low single digit revenue decline this year, rising to low single digit growth for both 2020 and 2021, as well as a commitment to cover all of Italy with fibre, 5G and FWA networks.
In its domestic market, Telecom Italia’s first-quarter revenues fell 4.2 percent year on year to EUR 3.50 billion, attributed to stiffer competition, although the operator said the “washing-machine” effect of clients moving from one operator to another via MNP cooled down in the quarter and will turn into better revenue performance over time. TIM’s mobile customer base rose 2.3 percent year on year to 31.7 million at the end of March, 22.3 million of them human SIMs, with the impact of lower prices offset by fixed fibre growth.
Strong growth in fibre and fixed consumer ARPU
In fact, TIM’s fibre base surged 58 percent year on year and 10 percent sequentially to “almost 6 million lines” (counting retail and wholesale) at the end of Q1, while fixed consumer ARPU was up over 9 percent year on year to EUR 35.6 a month in March.
TIM added that its management presented an update on the network sharing partnership with Vodafone during the approval of the results and that, based on a preliminary analysis, the deal could eventually generate synergies of between EUR 100 and EUR 150 million a year. The board also gave CEO Luigi Gubitosi a mandate to finalise the exclusive negotiations over the sale of media unit Persidera after receiving a binding offer.
